The Quest for a Pan-European Approach to Cryptocurrency

Part of the appeal of digital currencies is their global nature.

Since the vast majority of digital currencies are not sponsored by an individual state, the hope was that the crypto world could be largely borderless.

We've moved past the period in which many countries had their proverbial "Head in the sand" when it comes to digital assets.

There is a growing realization that the digital asset economy is a permanent part of the economic landscape, as well as an increasing wrestling about how this will work.

The European Union and its related financial institutions have already produced regulatory regimes that guide equities, fixed income and derivatives trading across large portions of the continent.

In July, the regulator described crypto assets as "a small, complex and evolving market covering a broad range of activities." While not everyone may agree with the stated size of the market, the document makes useful distinctions about security tokens and e-money tokens - which do fall inside existing rules - and the so-called "Unregulated tokens" that fall outside of the framework.

"Europe needs a common approach on crypto-assets such as Libra. I intend to propose new legislation on this," he said in an interview.

As someone who sits at the intersection of institutional and retail crypto, I am cautiously optimistic that we will come through this process with a result that makes long-term sense for the industry's development.

If it succeeds in pushing toward a common sense approach to crypto assets, it would be easy to see other countries and regions taking a similar path.

Robert Dykes is the CEO of Caspian, a complete crypto asset management solution with a single interface into all major crypto exchanges and professional customer service.